Both rational and sensitive
Enthusiastic and inspiring, able to make even the most mundane task seem fun and interesting
Resistant to criticism or conflict
Good money management skills
Smart, cheerful and well-liked
Very good at managing crisis situations
Usually attractive and popular among the members of the opposite sex
Willingness and ability to spend quality time with their children
Pay a lot of attention to their partners’ needs (though this may be limited to materialistic needs)

ESTP weaknesses

Poor long-term planning skills
Would rather sweep conflicts under the carpet than solve them once and for all
Tendency to be somewhat rude to other people, mostly unintentionally
May be attracted to gambling or other risky activities
Poor sensitivity when it comes to other people’s feelings
Bad at expressing feelings and emotions
Reluctant to make lifelong commitments
May get bored very quickly (also applies to relationships)
ESTPs’ tendency to shower their friends with gifts may often make other people quite uncomfortable

Every personality type has many weak spots and INTJs are not an exception. There is one area where their brilliant mind often becomes completely useless and may even hinder their efforts – INTJs find it very difficult to handle romantic relationships, especially in their earliest stages. People with this personality type are more than capable of loving and taking care of the people close to them, but they are likely to be completely clueless when it comes to attracting a partner.

Woaaah cool. Something I already know. Glad I could get accurate data on this. =w=

Your personality type: INFP.

Strength of individual traits: I - 2%, N - 16%, F - 28%, P - 16%.

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INFP personality

November 13th, 2011 | 6 Comments

INFP personalities are usually perceived as calm, pleasant, somewhat reserved or even shy. However, such an exterior can be deceptive – even though INFPs can be somewhat cautions, their inner flame and passion is not something to be taken lightly. People with this personality type are really affectionate, a trait not often seen in other types. This compassion can be really fervent and long-lasting – but the INFP will use it quite cautiously, directing their energies towards a few selected people or a worthy cause. Idealism is the banner of INFP personalities – and they are proud of it. Unfortunately, it also means that INFPs can often feel misunderstood and isolated, as they are relatively rare (only 4.3% of U.S. population).

People with the INFP personality type have a clear sense of honour, which emanates from their many different beliefs. The noble Prince or Princess in a mythical tale, the King’s bodyguard, the defender of the faith – these are the typical INFP images. Look at one of the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Galahad or Joan of Arc – and you will understand what heroes inspire and motivate INFPs. If someone wants to get to know an INFP, it is crucial to know what drives them, to understand their chosen cause – INFPs are able and willing to make incredible sacrifices in the name of their cause.

INFPs seek harmony in their lives – harmony of their body and mind, their emotions and intellect. There is often a subtle tragic motif seen throughout the INFP life, but it is very rare for an outsider to notice and recognise this. INFP dedication to good, noble causes forces them to defend themselves from everything they see as evil. Paradoxically, it can result in INFP constantly looking at bad things over their shoulder – in contrast to their constant quest for purity.

INFP personalities tend to see things and actions from the idealistic perspective, rather than the prism of logic. They respond to beauty, morality, virtue rather than utility, effectiveness or value. INFPs can easily speak in metaphors and parables, and they also have an amazing gift of creating and interpreting symbols – for this reason, INFPs often find it natural to write and enjoy poetry. This personality type does not worship logic, unlike the NT types – from their viewpoint, logic is not always necessary. It is also likely that an INFP will not enjoy hypothetical or never-ending discussions.

Regarding jobs and careers, people with the INFP personality type are quite flexible, able to adopt new ideas and new information and keen to understand and appreciate others’ feelings and unique traits. INFPs can easily find new friends among their colleagues if they want to (they will, however, maintain a psychological distance). They loathe phone calls that interrupt their workflow, and they may function just as well alone or as a team. INFPs are patient when it comes to coping with difficult situations, but they cannot stand routine work. They can make factual or logical mistakes, but their intuition will almost never be wrong where moral or ethical decisions are involved. INFP often choose careers related to religion, education, psychiatry, psychology or architecture – and do their best to avoid dealing with the business world. They are willing and able to commit to being high achievers in the academic community, sometimes falling behind at school but usually reaching much better results at the university.

Furthermore, INFPs have the trait common among NF types – their aptitude for foreign languages is unmatched. INFPs also often become great writers and actors, as they can easily reflect and convey their own personalities using the fictional characters.

At home, INFP personalities radiate extraordinary dedication and commitment. They like to live in harmony and consequently do everything they can to avoid conflicts. INFPs are sensitive to other people’s feelings and there are very few things more important to them than seeing happiness in the eyes of their closest people. However, INFPs can find it difficult to reconcile the romantic and idealized notion of living with the often bleak and challenging reality. Sometimes INFPs can even avoid seeking the attention of another person, worried that they will be hurt later. Furthermore, INFPs generally prefer expressing their interest indirectly.

Johnny Depp INFPINFP home is their fortress. As parents, they will always fiercely defend their closest people and remain dedicated to improving the wellbeing of the entire family. INFPs convey everlasting devotion, compassion, and flexibility; therefore, it is very easy to live with this type of people. INFPs do not care much about routine rituals and they often allow someone else to make daily decisions on their behalf – but only as long as those decisions are consistent with their value system. If this is not the case, then there is a very little chance the INFP will budge. INFP will do everything to defend their moral values and persuade others to agree with them.

As for the romantic relationships, it is likely that INFP will have more difficulties than any other character type. INFP is a relatively rare personality type and consequently few other types share the INFP approach to life. According to INFPs, “life is a very serious thing”. Regularly fighting in one of their personal crusades, INFP may slightly complicate the relationship with their chosen partner if they are not careful.

INFPs may also often retreat into their “hermit” state (this personality type can easily switch between the two states), withdrawing from the world and getting lost in their deep thoughts – their partner may then need to spend quite a lot of effort to energise and “awaken” the INFP. Ironically, this task is most easily handled by the opposite ENTJ and ESTJ types, who are well entrenched in the real world and are often driven by far more pragmatic goals than INFP. Both the ENTJ, commanding their inner forces and leading them towards a distant goal, and the ESTJ, with their solid, reliable and traditional management skills, can provide the INFP with a stable ground and direction that can be lost so easily in one of their crusades.

INFP personalities are extremely creative, innovative and goal-oriented. They radiate a soft and pleasant aura of humour, but it is not always easy to get to know them on a deeper level mainly due to many reasons outlined above. INFP are also very intuitive listeners, with a clearly expressed intention to learn more about the other person – this is clearly recognisable and consequently INFPs find it very easy to become valued friends and trustees. In addition, most INFPs have the ability to see even the slightest hint of good in other people. In INFP eyes, even the most revolting person will have something worthy of respect or, at the very least, sympathy.

"When it comes to interpersonal relations, INTP personalities see three distinct phases: figuratively speaking, “immersion”, “survival” and “resurfacing”. These phases reflect the logic of an INTP and their love for patterns. When getting into a new relationship, INTPs can lose their rational and dispassionate thinking for a very long time (a year or even more), “immersing” themselves in the new unknown world. If an INTP falls in love, it is extremely powerful – it is all or nothing. It is very likely that this phase will see the INTP become very ardent, even playful and careless – they will not attempt to control or analyse the relationship, but instead try to enjoy and experience the new feelings to the fullest. The INTP will be prepared to do many things and bend many rules to be with their loved one, no matter how difficult that might be."

These tests are kind of fun, and have some practical purpose, but they definitely don't define personality. It's been a while since Psych 101, but if I remember correctly, I scored INTP on this thing a couple years ago, and from what I've read of people's posts, that fits fairly well. Everyone adopts different personalities at different times though, so this test is basically just picking your favorite one, but whatever.

Almost. All personality tests are heavily dependent on mood regardless, but in the case of the MBTI its advantage lies in the use of cognitive functions which offers something a little more concrete for the theory to be based upon. To put it very simply this essentially means that while your type is INTP, you actually use all four dichotomies (I/E, N/S, T/F, J/P) but to varying extents, both within and between types.

I suppose the main point here is that one personality type is fairly flexible, so I'd say you can adopt different extents of your personality (type) rather than different personalities entirely. You're right when you say the tests don't define personality, although that wasn't the MBTI's original purpose and test results should only be used as loose guides. How much any of this is valid is debatable, since these types of tests rarely provide anything substantial in terms of empirical evidence anyway.

I do agree that they were not meant to define personality -- I was mostly just referring to the people that take it that way, as in, "I'm an XXXX." When I first learned about it a few years ago, I did some forum searching, and found a lot of people explaining themselves in terms of what they "were" inside this theory. It looked like, to some extent, some people thought that "who they are" was explained within the limits of the theory, although I'll grant that it does cover quite a bit. My main concern, however, is that there are probably some people that try and change their behavior to fit the "type" that they are (I can only guess, but it's not too much a long-shot). I'll just summarize my thoughts at the time as "this is BS."

A couple of years later, I can see that the tests can be a bit useful, if only to sort of quantify what you think about yourself, but I haven't really studied these theories in a while. I was more interested in the neuroscience side of Psychology, so that's really the only part that I still sort of study in depth; I'm a little out of my field here. After shortly reading up on the cognitive functions you mentioned, I can see how the theory is actually pretty substantial given an accurate view of yourself, but as you said, it's still pretty debatable. If nothing else, the theory aims to take peek inside people's heads, and I'm definitely supportive of that. I would have trashed on the theory a couple of years ago, but right now I'm in the process of trying to bullshit myself into thinking I'm open-minded, so I'll say that I don't think the theory's wrong; it's probably just incomplete.

As you said the theory does cover a broad range of personality preferences, but anyone who confines themselves to one type or defines themselves by it is defeating the purpose of the MBTI. It's misunderstood to label and categorise, when really it's just an attempt to understand the origins of personality and guide thereafter, allowing one to identify possible patterns and reasons behind their behaviour. As for changing behaviour to conform to a type, it's a completely moronic thing to do but happens fairly often, sometimes without realisation. I'd leave that to the individual's discretion.

The idea that personality may derive from brain structure and the influence of environment on brain development is a reason why I'm also interested in the neuroscience of psychology, and why my interest in this theory holds, which I called bullshit on at first too. While it would take a huge leap of faith to create any sort of link between the pseudo-science of personality theory and neuroscience, I still think it's an exciting possibility. The theory (amongst other similar ones) isn't without its faults, but admittedly provides a far more sophisticated model of personality when compared to tests that say, tell you what fruit or colour you are. Though again, the whole thing could be a pile of misled crap, but it's fun to tinker with.

The INTJ personality type is one of the rarest and most interesting types – comprising only about 2% of the U.S. population (INTJ females are especially rare – just 0.8%), INTJs are often seen as highly intelligent and perplexingly mysterious. INTJ personalities radiate the aura of intuition and self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes confused with simple arrogance by less insightful personalities, has a very specific nature – it stems from a huge archive of knowledge spanning many different topics and areas. INTJs usually begin to develop that knowledge in early childhood (the “bookworm” nickname is quite common among INTJs) and keep on doing that later on in life.

INTJ personality has mastered their chosen area of knowledge (INTJs can find their strengths in several fields), they can quickly and honestly say whether they know the answer to a specific question.

INTJs know what they know and more importantly – they are confident in that knowledge. Unsurprisingly, this personality type can be labelled as the most independent of all types.

INTJs are very decisive, original and insightful – these traits push other people to accept the INTJ’s ideas simply because of that sheer willpower and self-confidence. However, INTJ personalities do not seek nor enjoy the spotlight and may often decide to keep their opinions to themselves if the topic of discussion does not interest them that much.

Meh, I suppose it did a fairly accurate job, however I was annoyed by it's lack of explaining what "traditional" methods are. Obviously traditional has a wide range of definitions based on cultural differences.